While we wait for the Christmas doldrums to pass, I figured I’d bring to your attention a nifty little solitaire program I’ve been playing for some time.
I first came across Pretty Good Solitaire back in 1997. Yep, it’s been around a long time, and I’ve been a fan of it since then. Hands down, PGS is the best solitaire game around.
Currently, it has 660 (yes, 660) games, both old favorites and new ones you haven’t seen anywhere before. And if that’s not enough, it has a Solitaire Wizard so you can create your own games.
Further, the games are indexed in multiple ways: by type (Klondike, Spider, etc.), by decks (one, two, three or four), by favorites (make a list of yours), most popular (with other players), new, and so on.
The game can keep track of win/loss scores for individual players. Everyone can play without over-writing someone else’s record.
On the website, you can download (for free) additional card sets to use in PGS. My favorites are Halloween and Christmas.
PGS plays beautifully, and you don’t need a high-powered rig to run it. Shucks, it even runs under Win ‘95!
You can download the game for a 30-day trial; it weighs in at a mere 6 megs. You can also order by mail or phone. The current price is $24 (a steal if ever there was one!) for the download, or for an extra $7.50, you can have it sent on CD, which includes all the extra card sets.
When you need something soothing after a hard day in the dungeons, try a little PGS solitaire. Visit the website and check out all its features. This is one of the few games I recommend unreservedly (if you like solitaire!).
I got that one for my wife a little over a year ago. Yes, she’s an RPGer too, but PGS gets most of her gaming time.
She used to love an old program called “Solitaire’s Journey,” by QQP. QQP has been out of business for more than a decade, now, so that tells you how old the software was. And she no longer had a 5 1/4″ disk drive to install it :)
PGS was a definite upgrade.
Coyote, I remember Solitaire’s Journey. It wasn’t bad for the time. But PGS is definitely better.
Interplay had a solitaire game out, too, though I don’t recall the title offhand.
That’s a good one. My wife’s parents have had it for some time now, and I think we may have a copy on one of these old PCs someplace.
What’s a good one, Barg? PGS, Solitaire’s Journey, or the one from Interplay? It’s not clear from your comment ;)
I was never a big solitaire fan myself. Never even liked it when you needed a real deck of cards. lol.
Another good one is SolSuite. They just released the 2007 version a few days ago with 468 games.
http://www.solsuite.com/
The demo lets you play 3 games of each and to buy it is just $19.95. I like the very large card sizes in the new version. It sure makes it easier to play with my eyes getting worse as I age.
I always like Bicycle Solitaire, but it hasn’t been playable since Windows 95 or maybe 98. The game loads ok but when you deal the cards the faces are blank. I also really liked their Cribbage game too, but it has the same issues.
I had Solitaire Journey on the Amiga, so that one has been around awhile.
Xian, did you ever try those games with Windows compatability mode? That might help.
Yep, I had tried various ways to get it to work including the compatibility modes and checked the usual resources for problem games such as http://vogons.zetafleet.com and http://www.ntcompatible.com
I am not going to spend a lot of time worrying about it because the newer ones such as PGS are even better. I was suspecting that it was some kind of drawing routine that displays the cards that is the issue, maybe an old WinG (the predecessor to DirectX) or Win 3.1 API that isn’t letting the cards be drawn properly or is not functioning properly in XP.
Also love the card sets you can download for it. I have them all. I like to change to the seasonal ones but I do have favorites. Check it out those of you that have the PGS program.
The owner is constantly upgrading it which I like a lot as he adds new games and card sets.
Here’s hoping Vagabond never runs into Agnari the freecell whiz LOL!